Moby Dick: or, the White Whale eBook

Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw
that the Frenchman had a second whale alongside; and
this second whale seemed even more of a nosegay than
the first. In truth, it turned out to be one
of those problematical whales that seem to dry up
and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion;
leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt
of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the proper
place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever
turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however
much he may shun blasted whales in general.

The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger,
that Stubb vowed he recognized his cutting spade-pole
entangled in the lines that were knotted round the
tail of one of these whales.

“There’s a pretty fellow, now,”
he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship’s
bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I
well know that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but
poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering their
boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale
spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port
with their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and
cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they
will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s
wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look
ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with our
leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and
is content too with scraping the dry bones of that
other precious fish he has there. Poor devil!
I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s
make him a present of a little oil for dear charity’s
sake. For what oil he’ll get from that
drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn
in a jail; no, not in a condemned cell. And as
for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to get more
oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts
of ours, than he’ll get from that bundle of
bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain
something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris.
I wonder now if our old man has thought of that.
It’s worth trying. Yes, I’m for it;”
and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.

By this time the faint air had become a complete calm;
so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped
in the smell, with no hope of escaping except by its
breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb
now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for
the stranger. Drawing across her bow, he perceived
that in accordance with the fanciful French taste,
the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the
likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green,
and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it
here and there; the whole terminating in a symmetrical
folded bulb of a bright red color. Upon her head
boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton
de Rose,”—­Rose-button, or Rose-bud;
and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship.

Though Stubb did not understand the Bouton part of
the inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous
figure-head put together, sufficiently explained the
whole to him.